Zen
by Scarabbug
Summary: John teaches Shayera the finer points of one of his oldest traditions. He never warned her beforehand how senseless human traditions could be. [Oneshot. Very short. Set during the early first season of Justice League.]


**I'm still learning to handle the Justice Leaguers, so this is another attempt at writing simple off-duty scenarios. Don't expect any apocalypses. **

**This particular fic is set early during Season One of _Justice League_ (lets say pre-"_War World_", to give a more exact date). Brief oneshot. Inspired by this rather amusing webpage: www-dot-dorothykfletcher-dot-com-forward slash-zenfishing.html. **

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Zen.

Shayera eyed the squirming creature in her hand with all the scepticism used by Batman during a criminal interrogation.

'I fail to understand the challenge.'

'Probably because there isn't one, really.'

'Oh-kay,' she stuck the creature onto the sharp blade without so much as a moment's hesitation and was utterly undisturbed by the fact that it continued to twitch and writhe while impaled. 'So, no challenge, then? Not beyond sticking a hook into water. Don't tell me you did this for _entertainment_ as a child.

Shayera always understood John as a city type, born and bred in the concrete and metal, at home on a battlefield and under hot skies.

She didn't understand how he could seem so perfectly at _home_, out here in the middle of nowhere. ("Nowhere" being the outskirt of a town pretending to be the countryside), with the rocking motions of the boat he chose especially so she'd have room to stretch her wings.

She still wasn't all that sure the vessel was even seaworthy. 'Yeah well, it bored me the first few times I went with my dad, too. Anyway, that's all there is to it. You bait the hook, you cast the line, you sit down again. Lie, if there's room.'

'What if it rains?'

'We don't _fish_ when it's raining.'

Shayera sighed, and decided to just accept that fact. 'And then… we wait?'

'That's the idea,' John shrugged oddly from his lying down position and didn't open his eyes. His arms were folded behind his head and his own fishing line was barely supported on his chest and… it wasn't at all like the way he held a weapon. He didn't offer any further explanation. .

Baiting the enemy was a (not strictly, obviously) Thanagarian tactic she had often utilised in battle. It wasn't one she'd ever associated with lakes and fish, however. John seemed to know what he's doing. But then again, he wasn't doing _much_.

'You could always just use your ring,' she suggested. 'It could scoop out every fish in the river in one go.' (And if she were to use her _mace_ with just the right level of conducting charge, she could probably cause them all to come to the surface with one shot, too...)

'Yeah, I _could_.'

'So why not?' Shayera frowned. If he _wanted_ the fish so badly, why not use the most efficient method? It wasn't like him to consider a less direct approach.

'Because that's missing the point.'

Shayera wondered what the point could be. She'd already considered -and dismissed- hunting as a logical explanation. On Thanagar hunting expeditions were always so much more convenient -fish, or any prey, for that matter, were attacked in shoals, not taken from the water one at a time on the end of sharp hooks. How could you feed an empire like _that_? '…Which is, exactly?'

'C'mon, haven't you tough, warrior types even heard of pointless entertainment?'

_Speak for yourself… _'John, be serious. We've been here for an hour and I'm not catching anything. Actually I don't think there even are any fish _in_ this lake.'

'Yeah, I know. When I was a kid, we only ever caught one once,' he frowned. 'Think my dad might've put it there, actually, just to entertain me.'

Shayera glanced at the grub on the end of the hook, suddenly feeling it, and the last four squirming creatures that had come before it, was suffering for nothing. How could John –_John_, of all people– appreciate something so uneventful and unpractical? '…_Excuse_ me?'

'The point isn't to _catch_ the fish,' John said, one hair raised in the air, as if he were making some urgent statement and required the full and undivided attention of everyone in the vicinity (which was apparently just him and her, but…) 'The point is _to_ fish… That's what dad used to say, anyway. I suppose its Zen, or something.'

'Zen, huh?' These humans were getting stranger by the day.

'Yeah. Simple, but too complicated to explain. Think of it like… pre-battle meditation. Just relax and enjoy the sunshine. Don't worry about getting a bite.'

Shayera decided to take his word for it. '…Alright.'

And she waited, for as long as she could tolerate. Which was roughly half an hour. When she retrieved the hook from the water, the worm had gone but there wasn't any fish. She considered using her mace again.

'Okay this really isn't working. Why do you do this again?'

'Tradition,' John muttered, seeming only half awake. She was fairly sure that _sleeping_ wasn't a part of his instructions. 'We did this every summer for a couple of days – at this lake too… S'weird, but I never liked to get too far away from the city. This was fine, just close enough. We'd spend hours out here, over the weekend.' He stretched and Shayera heard joints crack in familiar places. Their bodies were... alike. Held similar memories of toil. 'Never really caught a thing. Didn't matter, though.'

Shayera didn't press him for further details.

'There were hunting ceremonies that take place on Thanagar, sometimes,' she offered hesitantly, after a moment. 'They usually involved brontadon, I think. Parties of up to thirty would scatter across the region. The first to bring back the prize gained the first blood spoils at the celebration.' She paused, trying to appreciate this new logic. 'The animals died out over two centuries ago, but… the hunts still continue.'

'See what I mean?' John smiled slightly. 'Tradition. Why else do something without a point?'

Shayera didn't have an answer for that question, nor did she attempt to find one.

It took another three quarters of an hour before her attention waned again. She was fairly sure her ancestors never found Brontodon baiting this uneventful.

Still, in the seven months she'd known him since the Justice League was formed, she's never seen a side to John which didn't involve the Power Ring and wall-shattering battles high over the city.

She couldn't say she entirely disliked it. It was always nice to not be arguing.

She kept her mace at her side, all the same.

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End file.
